


liars and killers (fathers and sons)

by TobermorianSass



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Experimental Style, Force-Sensitive Han Solo, Gen, Identity Issues, Self-Harm, Unreliable Narrator, bloodline timeline compliant but not necessarily bloodline event compliant, implied/referenced PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 21:25:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7137833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TobermorianSass/pseuds/TobermorianSass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Han Solo and his son are two sides of the same coin, or maybe the same side without realizing it. It's a sticking point through the years. It's why it's easier to call Han Solo a failure as a father than explain the whys and wherefores and the ins and outs and why looking at Han Solo is like looking at a mirror sometimes.</p><p>Or, the anatomy of the death of a relationship and the death of a boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	liars and killers (fathers and sons)

**Author's Note:**

> Probably helps to check this [theory](http://trashspacekids.tumblr.com/post/145235465040/cracked-12-times-han-solo-used-the-force) out before reading. 
> 
> Another note: I'm not entirely sure what kind of warning I need to put on this, if you feel there's any warnings that need to be added hit me up in the comments or on [ tumblr](http://tobermoriansass.tumblr.com/) where anon's always on/I reply to asks privately.

It’s easy to tell everyone that Han Solo was a failure as a father and allow them to fill the blanks in themselves.  

(It’s not very different from wearing a mask, which makes it natural he’d do both these things in the first place.)

* * *

The first thing he learnt as a smuggler was how to hide in plain sight because nothing gets an Imp more suspicious than a scoundrelly-looking guy trying to look innocent. It’s funny but most people are like that. Sometimes the quickest way to hide is to tell the truth and let everyone else fill in the blanks with everything they believe about you – and if you dress like a scoundrel and talk big but not always truthfully, odds are they’ll put you down for a scoundrel who talks big and nothing more.  He calls it the art of steganography, of hiding secrets in plain sight where no one bothers to look. Most parts of the galaxy they call it crying Rancor and call steganographer-scoundrels _cowards_ and _liars_.

Mostly, it’s about knowing which kinds of truths are best dressed up as lies to hide the other kinds of truths, the ones which sink into you like blaster shots and the numbing cold of carbon-freeze. 

There are downsides to this, but it means he can say things like “I didn’t imagine I’d ever be a _father_ – “ and everyone fills it in with everything they know about Han Solo, smuggler extraordinaire: too restless, too flighty, too irresponsible. So when he looks at his son and mumbles about _too much responsibility_ , no one sees the impossible burden of failure ( _adequacy_ ) he’s trying to shoulder. Han Solo’s bigger than that. Better than that. Han Solo once saved the galaxy ( _twice_ saved the galaxy) – being a father is a cakewalk by comparison.

The second thing he learnt as a smuggler is that if you tell enough lies no one believes you when you’re telling the truth, a _real_ truth, and that’s a real lonely place to be.

* * *

The sad fact about grown-ups is the way they’re blind. It’s not like they mean to be, but they are. It’s just one of those facts. They don’t see children. They just blunder around like – like –

 _Like a gundark in a ceramic shop_ , Ben Solo thinks sourly.

They think they don’t know – that children are too stupid to figure it out or that children are blind in all the same ways that they’re blind. But they’re not. They see everything and Ben _knows_ there’s something they’re hiding from him, something they’re afraid of and it’s something that’s stuck there somewhere underneath his skin and he can’t figure out what it is they keep seeing when they look at him and he tries, stars he tries, to scrape whatever this thing that’s trapped inside him away but it doesn’t stop them looking at him, studying him, watching him like he’s a wild creature thrown in a cage, waiting for an opportunity to go wild and –

It must be true when his mom and his uncle look at him, but when his dad looks at him like he _knows_ and _sees_ something that Ben can’t it can’t be. Han Solo isn’t like him. Dad’s just a _flyboy_ , 'cos that's what mom calls him and Ben’s – Ben’s special, he is, mom tells him as much all the time ( _you’ve got a special gift, Ben_ ) and Han - dad -  _doesn’t_. He _doesn’t_. 

He _doesn’t_?

Some days Han – dad – looks at him with a distant and faraway expression in his eyes, like he’s already seen whatever everyone else is still searching for. Like Ben’s a stranger. Ben searches for the shadow, for the ugly thing that makes Han – dad – look at him this way. Mom says, _it’s your father, Ben, not you –_ and she sounds old when she says it, but she’s right. It’s the only explanation, the only difference between Han – dad – and mom and Uncle Luke and him.

In another life, maybe, dad – Han – will look at him and not _see_ him because there won’t be any scratching thing underneath his skin, any secrets that won’t belong to anyone except Ben.

* * *

The smuggler’s dilemma looks like this: all places are home and no places are home. This means the smuggler is perpetually trapped in a state of leaving and returning and must stay in constant motion to reconcile this paradoxical tension.

(There’s a difference, the last time: he runs, he doesn’t leave.)

* * *

He leaves because burning your hyperdrives is better than getting burnt yourself, because sometimes the shots come too close, because the shell nearly cracks open and spills him out for everyone to see, because of the truths, because of the lies, because he has a son, because his son doesn’t need him, because of a million and one things he tells himself about how he needs to be free, because, because, because – there’s always one more excuse up his sleeve for him to pull out and its always true, but sometimes it isn’t true _enough_.

Some people might say it’s self-deception but deception’s an ugly word and besides, Han Solo isn’t a liar, not where it counts. He wears his heart on his sleeve and no one believes it because no one else wears their hearts on their sleeves. There’s a difference: if you don’t say it out loud, it doesn’t count.

He returns each time because he’s like a mynock drawn to the light. He returns because hyperspace feels foreign and Leia’s smile and her not-bitter but not-gentle banter feels like home. Or a kind of home. A place he can call home even if the restless jitteriness has sunk bone deep. Or maybe he means, he calls it home because it’s a place he returns to – and home is always a place you return to. The answers to the question’s all a bit hazy and besides, it’s unimportant. If he had to pick a kriffing metaphor, he’d call them a planetary system barely held together by the forces of gravity. They move in precarious balance against each other: a perfect dance of leaving and returning, of fighting and fragging.  

The flip side of this is entropy. The explosion that comes, comes much later and is both less and more than he’d expected. It still flings them out across the galaxy: Luke to somewhere unknown and Leia back to the arms of the Rebellion-now-Resistance, him back to the blurry lines of hyperspace – and Ben straight into the black hole at the centre of their galaxy.

He thinks – if – maybe – _if I’d been a sun like Luke and Leia_ – then – _I could have been enough_.

* * *

 _Jedi-Killer_. The name spreads through the galaxy like wildfire – on the holonet, through the Niktos and Hutt gang networks, through the ranks of smugglers and New Republic pilots that chase them through space, through the ranks of the First Order. Ben Solo disappears. Dies. Murdered. Another broken body among the dead.  

He doesn’t have a name anymore. For the first time in twenty three years, he feels free. Weightless. Like he could reach out and grab the whole galaxy in one hand. Like he can finally carry the weight of _his_ name – _grandfather’s_ name. 

The gnawing feeling sets in three weeks later and the new skin feels strange, too strange.

* * *

The mask is a convenience, but it is easier to wear it and pretend and watch them watch him.

 _Space-dust_ , he thinks. _Space-dust_ – and. No. Ben Solo is dead. Ben Solo was murdered. Ben Solo never was.

* * *

He finally understands at seventeen. Han - dad - is flying them through the atmo on Moorja on New Republic business when they hit an ion storm. If Chewie was around, Ben knows he'd have had something to say about plunging anything less than the Millenium Falcon in through the storm but they've (Han - dad) lost the Falcon in a tight game of Sabacc. Or maybe it was debts. No one tells Ben these things anyway, he has to do the guesswork and the eavesdropping himself.

Besides, Chewie is on Kashyyyk with his family, being normal and stuff because he’s not a Skywalker or an Organa or a Solo which makes everything pointless.

“We should go back,” he tells his dad. It's not a suggestion.

“We’re not going back,” says Han. “We're on a tight schedule here.”

Ben clenches his fists almost reflexively. It's not that he cares but mom will care and Han – dad –  isn't like Uncle Luke who can find his way through the galaxy blind. Han’s - _dad’s -_ just _dad_.

This isn’t more than a ‘show your face and smile’ kind of mission, the kind that involves schmoozing for the sake of connections, for the sake of all the petty worlds with their petty squabbles and their petty fragging need to be petted and coddled into thinking they actually kriffing matter in the grand scheme of things.

He feels it then. A slight ripple in the Force. Almost unnoticeable but Ben’s been practicing. He can tell the difference between Uncle Luke and mom – and the dark little voice in the back of his head. This isn’t anything like either of them this is. This is weirdly. _Han_. Dad. But he’s not like them. He’s not – he’s the ordinary parent, the one who sticks around and makes sure Ben’s eating his greens (not very successfully) and teaches Ben stuff about the galaxy (the things mom and Uncle Luke can’t teach him, anyway). He’s not – he’s not one of _them_ –

But there it goes again. Another ripple. Han – dad – frowns and the ship jerks to the right and a bolt of lightning sizzles through the air, striking the spot where they were barely a moment ago. Threepio clucks and exclaims in disapproving terror, says something that Ben doesn’t catch over the ringing in his ears. There’s a ripple and then another and now Ben can’t ignore it, can’t imagine how he never felt the way it bends and ripples around Han – _dad_ – barely noticeable but _there_ compared to Poe and his dad who’re dead weights in the Force –

“We’ve gotta dampen the power,” says Han – dad. “’less we want the stabilizers getting fried – hey – _focus_ –“

Ben slams the controls with more force than is necessary.

“ – _gently_ ,” Han – dad – adds. He never takes his eyes off the viewport and the controls in front of him and Ben wants to scream every time he feels the ripple, the shifting of the Force. “Hell we might as well cut power and make the landing on half-power –“

 _Ask them about the things they don’t tell you_ , the little dark voice keeps telling him when he’s trying to sleep at night. For the longest time Ben thought it was about the way they looked at him like there was a monster living underneath his skin, but he thinks he understands now – understands why Han – _dad_ – looks at him the way he does and it’s not him, it was never him, it was _Han_ – dad – because – because –

 _Han doesn’t know_. Because they were _lying_. Because maybe –what if – he becomes this – all washed-out and _sad_ and sent on these _stupid_ friendly ‘bridge-building’ missions like some kind of kriffing errand boy – _but that’s what he is_. Because maybe he’s like Han. Because –

“You can’t,” he tells him – Han. 

Han doesn’t look at him. Han looks straight ahead, focused on the storm – but it’s a _lie_. Ben can’t remember the last time Han looked him straight in the eye.

“Sir,” says Threepio. “I think –“

“Listen kid,” Han tells him evenly. “I’ve been flying ‘round this galaxy for fifteen years before you were born and I’ve been flying for the seventeen years you’ve been around, some of them good flights, some of them through hell-storms like this – and when I say we cut power, _we kriffing cut power unless you want us all to go home to mom in body bags_.”

“If I cut the power in half, we’ll go home in body bags anyway,” says Ben. “You can’t pilot us through an ion storm on half-power  – because –”

“Sir –“ Threepio sounds even more distressed than usual. “ _Sir_ – “

“Because?” Han says slowly. He says it weapon-shaped, like a blaster-shot aimed straight at Ben.

Ben’s been practicing on those too. He can stop at least five blaster-shots at a go now. The ringing in his ears is only getting louder with each moment. There are at least ten things he can say in reply to that. _Because you lie_. _Because they lie. Because it was you._   _Because you’re a loser_.

The little dark voice is mostly quiet nowadays, but Ben talks to whoever it is at night sometimes. The little dark voice agrees with him about Han.

(Imagine _spending your whole life thinking you’re a hotshot when you’re a nobody_ , Ben had told him once. _Imagine living like – with that._

 _But you’re not like that_ , the little dark voice had whispered seductively in reply. _Your mother is a formidable woman and your Uncle is a legend. You’re destined for great things, Ben_ Organa.

 _Organa_.)

He doesn’t fold his arms. It’s the only concession he makes. He cradles the word, the blaster-shot aimed straight at his head and turns it around and aims.

“Because,” he tells Han. “You’re not Uncle Luke. Or mom.”

There’s – it could be stunned silence, but Han’s frowning at the viewport and Threepio’s face never fragging looks anything except mildly startled anyway and it’s impossible to _know_ –

“Oh,” squawks Threepio. “Oh _dear_. I’ll – oh _my_.”

Han doesn’t look at Ben. He keeps them going. Ben thinks he ought to admire that kind of dedication, if only it wasn’t such a transparent attempt at – Han. Mediocrity. Whatever.

“Okay,” says Han. He still looks straight ahead, straight at the storm. Ben’s fingers twitch reflexively with the need to punch, or rip the consoles out with his bare hands until it’s all just blood and guts and wire. “We’ll land her on full-power then. Threepio start sending them our landing codes –“

Ben thinks, he has no right to do this. Not now, not after seeing things that aren’t Ben – after fitting his problems on to Ben – not after – looking at Ben with _pity_ and then being this – _mediocre_.

( _Because – because_ , he thinks wildly, _what if it’s true_?)

He doesn’t even use it consciously. Doesn’t even know he has it – or maybe he _can’t_ use it consciously, which makes it worse. Weaker. Smaller. ( _What if? What if? What if he_ isn’t _his mother’s son?_ )Han just keeps bending the Force around him as he flies them through the storm and lands them in one piece, against all the odds. Against Ben. Against – everything.

The Moorjans welcome them warmly and there’s backslapping – so much backslapping as they praise Han’s _courage_ and _bravery_. It makes Ben want to scream. Or shake them until they _see_. He doesn’t scream. He plasters a smile on his face and shakes hands and kisses babies and lies. The mission goes well and no one knows there’s anything wrong. Han and he don’t talk to each other. No one notices because Threepio does enough talking for everyone to make it okay. 

Han doesn’t look at him. It’s an improvement. 

A week later Leia whisks him off to Hosnian Prime and he doesn’t see Han again.

* * *

They were on Yavin in the summer, the sun beating down fiercely and the air heady and humid, when Ben and Leia had The Fight. It wasn’t the first fight and it wasn’t the last fight, but it was _the_ fight because everything was just that little bit off-balance and Ben wasn’t talking to him anymore – hadn’t talked to him for three years now – and the air between was thick with tension you could fry it with a lightsaber.

“It’s like a supernova in here,” Kes had joked over brandy one evening. It wasn’t funny. Han hadn’t laughed, but he’d forced his mouth into a grotesquerie of a smile and Kes had smiled and they’d been okay.

Leia was away too long, months at a stretch with each round of the Senate's sessions. Leia and Ben would fight over how long Leia was away over holovid and when she came home, they’d fight in person over how tired she was and how little ever got done by the Senate and how meaningless all the diplomatic trips Ben did along with him – now with her, just her, because they weren’t talking – were. This time she was around for a week, in between the Senate’s spring and summer sessions because she was Leia _Organa_ and it was twenty years since Endor, and Ben was around only for a month, between his Jedi training and only because he was Ben _Organa_ -Solo, not because they were a family.

Sometimes Ben terrified him.

Like all their fights it started slow; an ugly boiling like day time on Yavin, only there wasn't any rain or dusk to cool it so it had boiled over, between the questions about Luke ( _Jedi aren’t good for holovids_ , which was better than saying, _Luke sends his regards_ or _Luke’s busy_ – because none of that was true either; it all came down to Ben and none of them knew how to make the words fit right and say enough, but not too much or too little) and the questions about the New Republic and the drinks – too many drinks. Next thing he knew, the silence was thick and heavy like the dusky evening air and everyone’s looking pointedly away from him, away from each other, away from everything except their glasses – and Ben, Ben and Leia’s voices are loud, even though they’d gone inside to have it out and no matter which way he turns he hears them –

“These things don’t change overnight,” Leia says. “They take time – Ben, we have to be patient –“

“You said that last year,” Ben yells. “And the year before that – _and the year before_ – you said it each kriffing time you sent me on one of your stupid missions with Han because you thought I was too stupid to do anything except kiss babies –“

“Hey Dameron,” Lando says right then, too loudly. “Break out the Corellian whisky, will you? New round of drinks for everyone, put them all on me –“

 _Good old Lando_ , Han thinks, though can't look at Lando. Too much of his time goes in looking away from people nowadays. He should look away from this too, it'd make things easier. Han opens the door and steps in anyway, despite Chewie's low warning growl to stay out of this mess. 

Ben had said, right as he’d opened the door: “well _maybe_ the Empire had the right idea and everyone’s too stupid to listen to  anything except the force-damn military and maybe you’d get somewhere if you’d fragging _accept it!_ ”

Leia’s brown eyes go wide, like Ben’s slapped her. They didn’t talk about the bad times much with Ben, like the time they’d used interrogation droids on Leia (they didn’t talk about Han’s childhood at all; it wasn’t as though Ben was interested in anything except stories of their glory days with the Rebel Alliance). Even if they had, Ben wouldn’t have understood that those kinds of things were the kind that kept them up at night. You had to be there to understand. Even _Luke_ didn’t always understand though he tried, hells he tried.

”You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ben,” she replies and it’s too calm, it’s different from their electric-storm fights that shake their home from top to bottom. This one’s dangerous and broken and people hurt themselves on broken things more often than they crash or burn up.

 “See?” Ben screams and Han feels the weight of every single person’s gaze resting heavily on him, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight on end. “You _always_ do that – _maybe,_ maybe for once accept _you’re_ scared, you’re afraid because some people are too stupid to do anything ‘cept shut up and follow orders and those who won’t, only understand blasters and you’ve _wasted_ everyone’s time for _nothing_ –“

Chewie turns and walks away –it’s too quiet outside, there’s no chatter, nobody talking – and Leia says, in a voice that’s too low and too dangerous:

“I’m not doing this, Ben –“

And Ben says, _taunts_ her – “are you _scared_ , _mom_? _Scared_ you’ll get angry –”

And Leia storms out, past him and her hands are shaking, her eyes are shining all wrong – not with anger but wounded like she’d looked the night before Endor. Ben just stands there, all alone in the center of the room, his chest heaving and triumph glittering in his eyes before he looks at Han and waits – Han feels the weight pressing at the back of his mind, the urge to say something, anything.

And Han – Han hadn’t said anything. All he could see was the long line of Wookiees and aliens on Coruscant all in stun cuffs waiting to be taken to one of the Empire’s prisons or maybe the spice mines on Kessel and Chewbacca roaring at an Imp and the sonic whip and then just shooting blindly at the officer and thought, viciously, dizzily – _good_ , _it’s a good thing people don’t understand the force-damn military_.

He turns and walks away and leaves Ben all alone, triumphant in the ruins he’s made.  

He tells Leia instead, when Ben leaves three years later.

It’s easier than saying the other thing out loud. _There was too much Vader in him_ rings cold and distant, like a Corellian death knell, something faraway and out of their reach that couldn’t have been helped at all. It’s easier – better – than saying _he had the worst of us_. The worst of him. Of Leia. The swagger, the temper, the insecurity, the stubbornness – there wouldn’t have been a hint of Vader in him if he’d been Luke’s kid. Better to say this because it makes it a grand story, a big tragedy he somehow got sucked up into by accident, but never really belonged in. Like a mechanic thrown into an old Y-wing and told to kill Impies; that kind of ridiculous thing. Happened all the time in the Rebellion.

Thing was, after the dust settled, mechanics went back to being mechanics, but Han never went back because his whole life was an act of constant motion, of moving forward. Where? Anywhere. Smugglers didn’t go back unless they wanted to get caught. Or if there was no way out or nothing left to do, or someone had their choobies in an iron grip like Jabba'd had his for a long long time. No, it’s always straight forward. It’s fine until the pretend gets all stripped away. ‘Least when he says _Vader_ , it makes it not him and not Leia, but their old bogeyman come back to haunt them.

And if it was Vader, they wouldn’t have to worry they’d pushed Ben too hard in those final years in an attempt to pull him back from the edge of whatever cliff he’d walked himself right up to. They’d thought – maybe if he just _saw_ what it was like, if he _understood_ why Leia had to go, that she wasn’t doing this because she _wanted_ to leave him behind, that there was a point to all of this – and Han had begun running simple diplomatic missions for Leia, taking Ben along with him – before _that_ – and Leia had stepped in then and Luke had said:

“You keep pushing him like that and you’ll push him straight over the edge.”

But Leia had thought – and he hadn’t known, hadn’t fully understood. All he knew was that Ben could be cruel in a way that Leia wasn’t because Leia was sharp, but never cruel; in a way that had felt like looking in a mirror – the thought had made him heartsick.

(Han had once told Leia, in a fit of pique many years ago, that she was an iceball, a princess and not a woman and that she could use a little warming up. It’s not so different, he thinks, from Ben pointing out that he’s not Luke or Leia – only, you can’t shoot blaster-bolts back at your kid or tell them they’ve got all the breeding of a bantha.

It makes him think. For a little while, at any rate, before the worst part of him wins over.)

So, he says it. Flings his last card down on the table. Ben’s last words to him – it’s been six years, six years since they stopped talking, since looking at Ben felt more like pain than love – ringing in his ears. _Because you’re not mom or Uncle Luke_ – the unsaid implication stinging like a sonic whip each time: _not enough, too ordinary_.

 _There’s too much Vader in him and you couldn’t see it_.

He flings his last card down on the table and runs, because it’s nicer to burn your dreams down than it is to watch them crumble without you doing anything.

* * *

Leia says, _you’re his father_ , like it’s the easiest and most natural thing in the galaxy.

Han doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t tell her what Ben told him on Moorja. Ben Solo’s dead, anyway.

* * *

The ‘troopers don’t like it, most of the officers on board the _Finalizer_ are under the impression that it’s too much, too extreme, too theatrical and Sanitation thinks it’s bad for his air vents and the med-droids tells him it’s bad for his lungs but it’s appropriate. _They_ burnt grandfather and his dreams, so he burns them. It’s not appropriate; it’s necessary. Like his mask, it’s a reminder for – _them_ , the ‘troopers, the officers, Sanitation, the droids – _himself_.

They’re afraid of him; the mask, the urn and all the whispers that follow him everywhere he goes. 

There are ~~one hundred and fifty thou~~    ~~one hundred and fifty thousand and on~~  one hundred and fifty thousand and seven hundred and fifty one hairs, all burnt to a cinder and then burnt again until they became ashes and nothing of what they were – evidence that they once belonged to a particular person or place or moment – remained. They’re indistinguishable from all the other ashes he’s collected over the years. They’re only unusual because they coat the bottom of his urn. Everything else came afterwards. All the deaths, the murders – not the Jedi, not the kids he used to train with because he left that massacre with a loud ringing in his ears and his hands shaking from too much adrenaline. Because he’d only been half-done then, ugly and moulting, struggling to free himself from the baby fluff they’d wrapped him in to protect him from –

None of them knew the story, or how he’d bought a blade on Tatooine. One of the really old ones, made of durasteel. Not old enough to be too dangerously rusted but old enough to have a dangerous history. It’d looked like it must have killed someone once, so he’d bought it because it felt right in his hands – it felt inevitable, like his destiny, and he was still struggling free and there’d been too many words, too many words hammering at the insides of him till he felt stretched and fragile – like if someone reached out right now and touched him, he’d shatter into a million tiny, invisible fragments and disappear into the desert sand.

They didn’t know, how he’d come back and sharpened the blade in his quarters until it was sharp enough to slit his skin with the gentlest of touches, or the way he’d stood naked in the ‘fresher, with just the blade in his hand and the stains of battle – mud and sweat and specks of blood – still fresh, still lingering on his skin. All they knew was that Han Solo was a failure as a father because that’s what he’d told them. They didn’t know all the little lies and the sharp little words and distant glances that went into it. For five years, he’d imagined that the reason for all the lies and the sharp but misplaced words and the distant glances weren’t his fault. For five years he’d been right and their caution –the way they tiptoed around him like he was a wild, caged animal or held him like he’d pull his claws back in if only they hugged him and loved him enough as though hugs and mom whispering _shhhh it’s okay, I’m here, we’re here_ was going to be enough to make the dark little voices shut up like he was seven and not seventeen and the voices weren’t his own dark thoughts but nightmares and strangers inside his head – their caution had been all wrong and he’d been right about them being wrong.

(They didn’t know, the way the blade had felt cold when it finally touched his scalp, the way it’d slipped too many times because his hands were shaking, the way it’d stung, the way it’d felt like his hair was being pulled out by the roots, like Ben Solo was being pulled out by the roots.)

Turned out, that was a lie too. Turned out, there _was_ a monster living inside his skin where he couldn’t see, but _they’d_ known about it. They’d known about the monster and never told him because they thought – he didn’t know – if they kept it secret enough, if they hid it away long enough, history – _the Force_ – would miss it and he’d be safe. They’d looked at him all funny because they’d never seen _him_ and all those days he’d suspected they were looking at him and never seeing him he’d been right: only he’d been right in the wrong direction because they were right. _They were fragging right_. They’d all been on the secret and he hadn’t – he hadn’t – they’d _lied_ –

Leia Organa – Luke Skywalker – Han Solo – he’d stood there in front of the mirror in his refresher and hacked at his hair, each clump of hair falling away down his back, down his shoulders, another fragment of Ben Solo severed ruthlessly from him and flung away from him: _too weak, too stupid, too naïve, too hopeful, too gentle, too scared –_ too fond of the lies, too fond of hiding, too scared of the truth even when Snoke had been whispering, asking him for years – _ask them about the lies they tell you_ or _ask them about the things they hide from you_ – too weak and unpredictable and wild and angry and hungry – for everything, for everyone, for them to look and _see_ and for them to look away and not-see, for them to leave him alone, for them to want him – too contradictory, too stupid – _too ugly, too damn ugly_ – _it’s not you it’s him_ – _they’re afraid of your power_ – too powerful, too strong, too fragile and too broken – _your mom was scared, scared of what it meant and scared of what you’d – they’d – do if you – they – knew_ – too much like his father, _too much like his fragging father_ – _failure, failure, failure_ – and scared – not enough, never enough, easier to be not-enough – _but you’re not like them, you’re destined for great things_ – too scared that he wasn’t, that he was small – too scared, always too scared, always too scared of everything – too many things: small, ugly black worms wriggling underneath the surface of his skin and the burning, the itching on the back of his shoulders and along his arms and the things he didn’t understand that made him want to punch and hit and scream and to make them hurt the way they made him hurt when they looked at him like he was a wild animal and not a person –  when they looked at him like he was _Vader_ – when he said the kind of things, hurt-shaped things, blaster-bolt-shaped things and he drove it in so they’d understand –  when they looked back at him like they were _worried_ but never listened, even when he screamed his lungs out at them and begged them to listen – when they _lied_ and _lied_ to him – when they were _worried_ but not enough to tell him the truth or let him in – a monster – _Vader, Vader, Vader, Vader_ – an animal, wild and snarling, a dog, an attack dog – _Vader, Vader, Vader, Vader, Vader, Vader, Vader, Vader_ –

Leia whispering – _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ and Luke telling him – _she wanted the best for you, she wanted – we all wanted to keep you safe – we didn’t – we wanted the best –_ and Han – _silence_ , nothing, nothing at all because he was a _liar_ and a _coward_ – because _Ben Solo_ was a liar and a coward and liked to pretend things were all right and things were fine when they weren’t, when they were shit and falling apart in his hands and it was all his fault –

 _I’ll show them_ , he’d thought, staring at his hands – bloodied from where the blade had slipped while he was shaving his head. _I’ll show them_.

 _It’s what they wanted_ , he’d thought. _They were right._

 _You cannot fight your destiny_ – _you cannot fight what you are meant to become – I can help you – if you trust me – Kylo Ren_.

(Han Solo – Leia Organa – Luke Skywalker – liars, liars, _liars_ and big, fat, _fragging_ heroes.)

 _They’re jealous – of you, of what you could become. They’re afraid_ –

They were afraid. For him, of him, because of him, because he had _bad blood_ and _rages_ and he was _cruel_ and he was _Vader_ and he was _sick_.

He’d shaved his eyebrows off next. He looked too human, even with his head shaved. Too much like Ben Solo. Too normal and small and afraid. He shaved his eyebrows and his chest and his arms in patchy strips and then plucked at his eyelashes, despite the bloody mess on his hands and the mess where his eyebrows were. He’d plucked them until he’d felt alien and disjointed and empty and his hands had stopped shaking with too much adrenaline.

When he was done, he’d collected them and burnt them. He’d started one of the fire alarms aboard the _Finalizer_ by accident, until the General (just a stupid Colonel then) with his override codes had entered and stared at him standing naked and mostly hairless in the middle of his room, a fire burning merrily in the middle of the floor. The General had just turned on his heel, left without saying a damn thing and sent a polite memo to do his burning off ship the next time instead.

(“Supreme Leader Snoke says,” he tells the General sanctimoniously, delicately leaving the sentence unfinished. He wishes it was fear and not annoyance that rolls off the General in waves. Fear makes things easier. Simpler.)

They’re afraid of him. All of them. They’re afraid of the helmet, the urn, his tempers. All there and not there. It’s different. He lets them have that freedom. The feeling’s too familiar and comforting to make it disappear: it feels like home, along with the gnawing feeling in his chest. It’s familiar, in the same way the old man on Jakku tells him he can’t deny his family and Han Solo tells him he’ll see his son if he removes his helmet. They’re right. They're right. They’re _so_ right.

 _So right_.

* * *

Han almost lets – _him_ – walk past him and away. It’s been thirteen years since he and Ben last spoke, ten years since he last saw him. Last time he’d seen him, he’d singlehandedly smashed all the little lies they’d told themselves since Endor, every single damn last one of them all the way from Leia and Kes to Lando to ex-Imps like Kyrell to Chewie – kriffing _Chewie_. Chewie'd done nothing - been nothing less than kind, caring - unlike them with all that shit they carried tucked up under them everywhere they went, all the _Vader_ hanging on their shoulders - Chewie never let on he’d heard Ben say what he’d said about the Empire, didn’t even go quiet when Ben was around. He just kept on, like it was nothing.

Chewie was always the better guy out of the two of them.

Not like he’s a tough standard to beat. There’s some disreputable types in the Rebellion-turned-Resistance but as far as things go, he comes in at the tail end of the line, along with the crooks and the con-artists and reformed gangsters. He’s always left the do-gooding to guys like Leia and Luke and the Damerons (Dameron junior’s… _something_ … he doesn’t remember ever being that intense at that age), content to drift along wherever they pulled him. But there’s people depending on him – the whole kriffing galaxy – and he thinks – if Dameron junior and Leia and Big Guy and Rey and Wexley’s kid can do this, hells so can he. He can be brave, for fragging once in his life and stick around and stand instead of cutting his losses and getting out before he gets scratched.

It’s kind of sick, because he tells Ben to remove that damn mask so he can see his son and the last time he’d been around Ben, he’d been unable to see anything except the phantom of Endor and Bespin reaching across the years for him. This isn’t the kind of conversation he can fling space-dust around in either. Ben was always too clever for that and they’d – he’d – been too damn self-absorbed to see Ben was the kind of smart kid who gets hold of things and squirrels it away ‘stead of talking it out.

Funny, but he’s spent so long thinking Ben was dead that when Ben finally says it out loud, it sounds like a lie.

* * *

The Force warps with a presence he’s ignored for thirteen years. It comes crashing through the trees and comes to a stop and Kylo Ren knows just how far he’s come with his own training because he’s never been so _aware_ of Han: a spike like a heart attack in the Force that ebbs away just as suddenly as it started, which must be because the Falcon’s come to a stop.

It’s there again, down by the oscillator shaft, curved around a thermal detonator – and another and another. Not the presence, but a sudden absence, a sudden gap where Han Solo was a moment ago that makes it noticeable.

 _It takes two to play at cat and mouse_ , he thinks. Nothing else gets them running scared quite the same. Nothing gets them cocksure and stupid like the thought the danger’s over because his back’s turned. They _always_ make the same mistake: the danger’s never over.

He’s a walking time bomb or: _Starkiller_.

* * *

Every inch of him screams _run_ or some variation of _I’ve got a bad feeling about this_ , but Han figures he’s spent thirty years of his life following his instincts that it’s about time he breaks his clean streak, ever since he followed Luke back into the damn Death Star and saved the kid from being blasted clean into deep space – saved the _galaxy_ , that’s the kriffing part. _Saved the galaxy_.

He isn’t sure that wasn’t instinct either.

(He’s surprised the old barb doesn’t sting when Ben throws it back at him. Seems like seven years wandering around and smuggling’s all it took to knock sense back into him. That and Leia – and Maz. Probably Maz and seeing Big Guy – Finn – nearly making the same kind of mistake he did seven years ago – and before, on Endor – and before on Yavin. Ben’s right, but seven years of smuggling and being kind of awful at it make the art of self-reflexive steganography much harder.

Or put simply: he’s brave enough to face the truth now.)

Maybe that old instinct that sent him after Luke because Luke was just a _kid_ and this naïve and kind of adorable farmboy from the asshole of the galaxy isn’t all that different from the instinct that makes him tell Ben to come home. Maybe he has a thing for saving the galaxy by saving people. Maybe his instincts are all kriffed up from too much time in hyperspace and smuggling Rathtars across the galaxy, anyway. Maybe he might as well use it and go out with a bang than keep sneaking around the galaxy like a damn rat.

* * *

Seven years of practice ‘s made it easy to twist himself into whatever the hell he needs to be. Jedi-killer. Resident crazy. All-round-pain-in-the-ass. Kylo Ren. Esteemed leader of the Knights of Ren. The Voice of Supreme Leader Snoke. Scared kid’s a luxury cruise by comparison.  Even the tears come easily now. They used to be a struggle once. Not anymore.  

\--

There’s an empty space in the Force.

\--

The world is spinning and there’s blood all over his black gloves and not all of it is his. Not all of it is his.

The darkness won’t come. The darkness won’t come. He chases it. He chases it into the forest, through the snow.

The light chases at his heels and snaps at his ankles like a hungry vornskr.

\--

There is an empty space in the Force.

\--

He tries to ignore it. He screams and hopes that this will unlock the darkness that’s all twisted up inside him. It _has_ to be twisted up inside him, sliding underneath his skin. Snoke said so. Snoke said he’d set it free.

 _Snoke’s lying to you_.

There is an empty space in the Force where Han Solo used to be.

(He wonders if – no – he can’t – but – he still hears her: _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ – he wonders if she feels it too –)

There’s blood on his gloves and not all of it belongs to him – _good_ , he thinks and reaches for the darkness with both his hands. It twists and turns and wriggles away from him and the light lunges at him instead with a snarl. He drives the hilt of his lightsaber down deliberately into the TRAITOR’S arm ( _FN-2187_ screams his memory, _FINN_ screams everything else) and for a moment the darkness is closer, so close he feels it brush over his fingertips where he adds this boy’s blood to the blood on his gloves –

\--

There’s an empty space in the Force where Han Solo used to be.

There’s an empty space in the Force where Han Solo used to be.

There’s an empty space in the Force where –

– where --

\-- where –

 _~~Han Solo~~ _ _Han –_

\--

He is Darth Vader’s grandson – Anakin Skywalker’s grandson – his _heir_. He _is_. All his life that’s all he’s ever been, right from when he first lost his temper when he was thirteen and reached out and felt the viewport shatter under the sheer power flowing from his fingertips –

And mom and - ___ - had looked at him in terror. And mom had said _it’s him, not you_ because every time after that ___ had looked at him like he could have killed ___. And ___ had looked through him, looked at his shoulder, at his hair but never _at_ him ever since then because ___ was a _fragging failure as a fragging_ – whatever –

_There’s an empty space in the Force where ___ used to be._

His hands are empty. All he has is blood and a broken saber and not even his helmet. For five minutes back there in the oscillator shaft, he’d been king of the galaxy – scared boy and Knight of Ren and Starkiller and Jedi-Killer and all those things rolled into one – strong and unbreakable and untouchable and now everything’s breaking and the world is falling apart and the scavenger girl – the _thief_ – has _his_ lightsaber – the lightsaber that should have been rightfully his – that should have come to him when he held his hand out for it and called on the darkness but he was weak, _weak, weak_ like –

The girl is a knife in the Force.

( _There is an empty space –_

_\- in the Force –_

_Where –_

_\- where_

                                      – _where –_ )

Even the fear isn’t enough to call the darkness back to him. He reaches and reaches and with each grasping curve of his hands, the Force – the darkness retreats further away and all that’s left is the light, circling him and growling hungrily like a wolf in the snow – like a girl – scavenger-girl – thief in the snow –

\--

 _There is an empty space – in the Force_ –

and

_**TOO SCARED** _

and

_**NOT ENOUGH  **                                                        _

and

_Ben Solo_

_crawling_

_out_

_of_

_the grave_ –

\--

 _WEAK. STUPID. FOOLISH. BOY_.

\--

There is an empty space in the Force where ~~Han S~~ ~~Ha~~ –

                                                                                                                    -- where –

Dad

\--

He doesn’t have a mask. He doesn’t have a name. He has a scar. It’s for Ben Solo. It’s all he has.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kylo Ren shaving his head & his eyebrows owes its genesis to _The Wall_ which I was listening to on loop while writing this  & is recommended listening while reading, if that's your kind of thing.
> 
> Feel free to hurl your questions/thoughts at me in the comments. Or you know, come flail with me about these nerds on [tumblr](http://tobermoriansass.tumblr.com/).


End file.
